Uranium Energy Corp. clears path to start drilling in Bee County
Uranium Energy Corp. says it plans to soon begin drilling for uranium in Bee County.
Officials for the Corpus Christi-based company announced Tuesday it would restart wellfield development and resource delineation drilling at the company’s 19,335-acre Burke Hollow in-situ recovery uranium project site near Beeville.
Doing so, the company said, would expand Burke Hollow’s resources in line with Uranium Energy’s overall strategy to help stock the U.S. Uranium Reserve as outlined in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2020 Nuclear Fuel Working Group report.
“Burke Hollow’s initial production area is amongst the largest uranium ISR wellfields ever developed in the 45-year history of uranium mining in South Texas. It’s a key building block in our production readiness portfolio,” said Amir Adnani, the company’s president/CEO.
Unlike conventional mining methods, in situ recovery, or ISR, involves removing ore, using a series of wells to inject native groundwater, fortified with oxygen and baking soda, into the ore zone.
The mixture, commonly known as lixiviant, dissolves uranium as it is drawn through the ore zone by pump. Uranium in the water mixture is later extracted by ion exchange.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in February 2019 issued a radioactive material license to Uranium Energy for its Burke Hollow project, giving it the four permits needed for uranium extraction.
The Burke Hollow project area is located in Belt, about 50 miles southeast of the company’s Hobson Processing Plant in Karnes County.
“The low-impact ISR method of uranium recovery being developed at Burke Hollow is the most environmentally friendly way to mine uranium which is now responsible for approximately 50% of global production,” Adnani said.
